Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Declan McCullagh of CNET reports that Amazon has won it's case against the state of North Carolina. Amazon doesn't have a physical presence in N.C., so the state can't collect sales tax on items sold on Amazon. But North Carolina has a usage tax that is supposed to be paid by citizens of the state. Because the tax wasn't being collected N.C. wants Amazon to give up the names and items purchased by citizens of N.C. so they can be charged for the tax.

Amazon had offered anonymized data, but the state wouldn't accept it. The judge ruled that the N.C. was asking for more information than it had a right to. In addition, the data ran afoul of the First Amendment by giving the state access to information on what people were reading, watching, and listening to.

The decision was in line with previous court decisions on states asking etailers for customer information. States have no need to know exactly what we purchase unless they have reason to believe we are breaking the law. Even then they should need a court order or search warrant.

About Me

Herbert (Bert) Knabe Jr. is a blogger specializing in online
security, privacy and intellectual property. He has long been a fan of
Apple computers and occasionally writes on their products. Online since the mid '80s, he has been blogging on a variety of topics
including U.S. policy and online privacy/security since 2005.

He
has twenty years experience in the newspaper industry, initially as a
production artist, then as a computer technician supporting content
producers. This experience gives him a strong understanding of graphic
production for print and web.

Photography has long been a passion
of Bert's, and he was honored to have a photo included in the PDF
version of the 2011 Plus One Collection. He specializes in cell and
smart phone photography.

Bert lives and goes to church in Lubbock, Texas with his wife of twenty+ years and their five children.